Remember, Remember

The 2nd of November

The Iraq War treason and plot.

I know of no reason 

Why Bush Era treason

Should ever be forgot...*

The subject of today's post is Drew Magary's very fine column in GQ entitled "If You Vote For Trump, Then Screw You", but before we get there I want to fire up the Kodak Carousel and take you on a little trip in time with me. back through the pages of our recent past.

Twelve years ago, you might remember, Senator John Kerry was busy whipping the shit out of the Worst President in Modern American History during a series of televised presidential debates.  The late Hunter S. Thompson was still alive and writing at the time and here were his impressions (emphasis added):

...

Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready for it. His long-awaited showdowns with John Kerry turned into a series of embarrassments that broke his nerve and demoralized his closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no matter how many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of Kerry supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners.

Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill.

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful... I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President", and then I felt ashamed.

Karl Rove, the President's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St Louis and Tempe. That is Rove's problem. His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters.

Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his teleprompter. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night - except this time, the false prince turned back into a frog.

Immediately after the first debate ended, I called Muhammad Ali at his home in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard that he couldn't come to the phone. "The debate really cracked him up," he chuckled. "The champ loves a good ass-whuppin'. He says Bush looked so scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down."...

It turned out Dr. Thompson wildly overestimated the sound judgement of the majority of American voters after being hammered for three years by continuous Republican fear-mongering screaming out of every radio, every teevee and every newspaper headline.  In their fear-stupor, enough "independents" and "undecideds" stampeded to join forces with the scum of the Right to do something so stratospherically stupid that we haven't even begun to make a dent in the ruin it left behind.

Of course there has been an ocean of Republican ratfucking, sedition and raw, racist sewage under the bridge since then (which has been documented virtually every agonizing day in excruciating detail on Liberal blogs such as this one) but in the immediate aftermath of the re-election of the Worst President in Modern American History, this post showed up first on Daily Kos, and then on TPM and the late Steve Gilliard's News Blog.  It's long (this was in the days before "tldr" was the internet reader's default setting), powerful and I have referenced it before on several occasions, but today I want to dial in on one very specific theme that recurred over and over again on the Left in the aftermath of the re-election of the Worst President in Modern American History.

A theme of  "Fuck These People."

...

You're good people.  You're educated.  You don't watch Fox News.   You don't listen to talk radio.  You, simply put, haven't the faintest idea what we're up against.

These are not Conservatives--this is not the Republican party we knew.  This is the Movement funded by Richard Mellon Scaife , the Koch Brothers,  and Joseph Coors, among others.

This is Ann "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building" Coulter , whose books are huge best-sellers.  Read a few of her columns and then come back and tell me I'm over reacting.

This is Rush "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream" Limbaugh , who has an adoring audience of many many millions...

How about Sean Hannity , on whose show a young woman caller, to much acclaim, pronounced that she was voting for Bush "because President Bush likes war.  Kerry doesn't like war.  So I'm voting for Bush."...

Michael "Savage" Weiner , who, while voicing his contempt for San Francisco's homeless and the efforts to help them, Savage, a long time Bay Area radio personality, said that female students who come from a Marin County private school to feed and provide services to the homeless "can go in and get raped by them because they seem to like the excitement of it..." These and other comments suggesting sexual activity between homeless people and minor students were peppered throughout the three-hour broadcast....

Check 'em out!  They want you dead.  Don't you think you should be aware?  Browse their sites and comment boards and then come back and tell me you can reach them, educate them, live in peace with them.  Or that you want to.

And don't forget this guy, who wrote , after the election:

"If anyone needs to work to 'bring the country together' it’s those on the left who have divided it so badly. Those who sought to destroy this great man should get down upon their knees and beg the victors for mercy. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a few of them linger on for the simple reason that they amuse us. My life’s goal is to see the Democratic Party virtually obliterated and left as a rump of people like Stephanie Herseth who both mostly agree with us anyways and are easy on the eyes.

"That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women.

"Let’s face a hard truth: this was the bitterest Presidential campaign in living memory. The Democrats and their allies staked everything on the defeat of this President. All of the resources they had accumulated over a generation of struggle were thrown into this battle: and they have failed. Despite all of their tricks, despite all of their lies, the people have rejected them. They mean nothing. They are worth nothing. There’s no point in trying to reach out to them because they won’t be reached out to. We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and our boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards."

All of whom are wildly popular, hugely influential, make tons of money, and who want us dead.

...

Fuck them.

And I know you, my fellow lefties... Your kindness, your warm welcome, your generosity, your concern, your love and passion--it will never work.  These people hate you.  Understand?  They HATE you.  They want you dead.  All your work, your energy, your wisdom, your experience--it means nothing to them and it reads as weakness.  They see your open, extended hand, and they feel oppressed by it-- it reads as scolding, as hectoring, as judgment, as oppression.  They think you're going to take away their children and their guns and their Bible that they never read and teach them evolution and force them to get gay married.  They really, really believe that, even as they take you for all you're worth.  In fact, this belief of theirs is what gives meaning to their sordid, hateful, fearful, resentful lives.   

They will never change.  Your kindness and generosity only enables them.  They'll take what we've got--our money, our art, our science, our technology, our wisdom, our humor, our compassion--and they'll spit on us and calls us communist traitor faggots.  Time to let go.  They hate us.  It's time we realize that...

They're bullies.  They hate weakness, vulnerability, anything smaller than they are, anything at a disadvantage to them.  They hate it.

Michael Moore thinks that if he just educates them--if he shows the beautiful young soldier with his limbs blown off, in the inescapable horror of morphine addiction; if he shows endless lists of the names of the young working-class people who died so horribly for a lie; if he shows Iraqi children flying kites; if he makes them watch an Iraqi elder get sexually molested and then mocked for it--if they just see it, they'll understand.

He's wrong.  Michael Moore's the one that doesn't understand.  They do see it.  They do know it.  They are fully aware.  They understand just fine.  They like it.  And god help anyone that gets in their way.

If they can make someone else suffer--suffer more than they do, even a little bit more (a lot more, that's a bonus) even if they have to increase their own suffering to make sure someone else suffers--they will do it--they'll do whatever it takes...

Fuck them.  Walk away.  Just say no.

...

Right-wingers are cowards.  They want a monarchy, a theocracy.  They hate Liberalism. They worship hierarchical power.  The only thing they respect is a boot in the face.  That gets them rolling over and peeing in exciting submission.  Fuck them.  Let's give them some of that Shock and Awe they love so much.  Let's withdraw.  They will not change.  They are just plain bad.  Spend your time and money on yourself, your family, your community, your values.  Let them drown in their own filth.

As Joe Conason writes ,

"Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people...

"If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances…"

It's ours--we fought and died for it.  They don't want it; they never did.  So fuck them.  Walk away.

...when you keep reaching out your hand in loving kindness to someone who hates your fucking guts and wants you dead, you're an idiot.

So stop it.

Stop enabling them.  Stop fighting for them.  Stop trying to give them something they don't want.  Just stop.  Stop not telling the truth because it'll hurt their feelings and cause unpleasantness.  They're bigots...

That was twelve years ago, and a person can learn a lot in twelve years.

Twelve years is longer than my first marriage lasted.  That experience taught me a bunch.

You can complete an entire American primary and secondary education in twelve years.

You can, on average, complete a bachelor's degree and a PhD in twelve years.

And if the history of the last twelve years should have taught us anything, it's that the judgement we rendered on the Right twelve years ago were, if anything, too merciful.   

After twelve years of the Bush administration's failures and lies spilling out  in front of the whole world, bloody and awful like the intestines of a gut-shot mobster?  After the massive, hysterical Republican denial that any of it was happening...followed by an equally massive, hysterical Republican denial that they had ever even heard of George W. Bush?  After the rise of Trump and his John Birther Society?  After a million desperate lies deployed for the sole purpose of stopping Barack Obama from trying to give millions of uninsured Americans a little help and peace of mind?  After a million more lies deployed to try to sabotage the Obama Administration as it worked to save the world from a global depression?  After the GOP all signed on to the Caucus Room Conspiracy to obstruct the Obama Administration to death? After the shutdowns and a dozen dozen bullshit partisan witch-hunts in lieu of actual governing?  

And after every fucking jot and tittle of it was eagerly aided and abetted by the Both Siderist Quislings of the American media, we finally arrive, twelve long years later, at...

If You Vote For Trump, Then Screw You

... And so I’d just like to say to that portion of the electorate: Fuck you. No, seriously. Go fuck yourselves. I’m not gonna waste any more time trying to convince you that you’re about to do something you’ll regret forever. I’m not gonna show you old clips of Trump saying rotten things. I’m not gonna try to ANNIHILATE Trump by showing you records of his hypocrisy and greed. I’m not gonna link to a John Oliver clip and be like, “THIS. So much this.” Nothing’s gonna take down Trump at this point, so I’m not gonna bother. No no, this post is for ME. I am preaching to the sad little choir in my soul here.

Because while Trump is a miserable bastard, YOU are the people who have handed him the bullhorn. YOU are the people willing to embarrass this nation and put it on the brink of economic ruin all because you wanna throw an electoral hissy fit. YOU are the people who want to revolutionize the way America does business by voting for its worst businessman, a disgusting neon pig who only makes money when he causes problems for other people instead of solving them. YOU are the thin-skinned yokels who clutch your bandoliers whenever someone hurls the mildest of slurs at you (“deplorables”), while cheering Trump on as he leaves a bonfire of truly hateful invective everywhere he goes. YOU are the people willing to overlook the fact that Trump is an unqualified, ignorant sociopath because DURRRR HILLARY IS BAD TOO DURRRR.

You know what? No, she’s not. She’s fine. I lived through one Clinton, and I can live through another. My reasons for hating Trump are better than your reasons for hating Hillary. Show me all the arguments against her you like. You guys don’t give a shit about facts and research when it comes to Trump, so I’m not gonna give a shit about whatever clumsy meme you cook up to explain why she did Benghazi. Nope. Sorry. Fuck your arguments, and fuck you. Trump has shown no respect for anyone, so I don’t see why you deserve any either. Whatever mildly frustrating centrist liberal bureaucracy that Hillary presides over will be fine compared to the spray tan mushroom cloud that would arise all because YOU thought Trump was such a brave, un-PC dickhead to everyone within shouting distance...

Twelve years later, and Dr. Hunter Thompson is long gone, Steve Gilliard is long gone, while Sean Hannity is doing better than ever, Rush Limbaugh has consolidated his grip on the Republican Party, and Ann Coulter is now a welcome guest on MSNBC where Chris Matthews help promote her horrible books.   

Which is why, twelve years later, we who have been right about the Right all along have no need to apologize or explain ourselves to anyone.  We have earned our Bachelor's and PhD's in "Dead Wrong All Along" Wingnut studies the hard way, grinding it out, doing our homework, reading and writing day after day, year after year. And we know from bitter experience that it is not enough for the Republican candidate to be profoundly unqualified, or for him to shit himself in public over and over again.  We know that the Right really are a basket of deplorables who are beyond the power to reason or civic redemption.  We know from bitter experience that the media -- who should have been reporting the Right's descent into madness with escalating alarm every day over the last twelve years -- have abandoned their posts and sold us out for money and ratings.  

Once again we find the only thing we can count on is each other.  Getting the unregistered to get registered.  Getting the souls to the polls.  

Once again, it falls to the dirty hippies to help protect America from its worst impulses and ugliest demagogues.

And once again, as we bitch and gripe and roll our eyes, we will roll up our sleeves and do our bit to save the day.

* From here